Dear Rebecca,

I admire your concern to spare your mother's feelings but really, your mother is not concerned with feelings at all. She is concerned with the spiritual protection and eternal salvation of your son.

I gather from your remarks that the path you have chosen, the path that you think is right for you, is a path of non-belief or non-Christian belief. If you truly believed any particular thing to be true, as a good mother, you would teach that truth to your child, and enable your child to participate in it. That said, you must be a relativist: someone who believes that there is no absolute truth.

Moral relativism is workable only because as a society we are still operating a little bit on the basis of moral absolutes (that there are things that are right and wrong, true and not true, no matter what). Once moral and philosophical relativism take hold, gradually there is no more guarantee in society for anyone's rights because it is only the strong who decide:

• what must be done, and
• what must not be done.

Right now, in the little society of your family, you are the strong one able to decide:

• whether or not your child gets immunizations (within some control by the state)
• whether your child is educated or not
• whether your child has a good diet or not
• whether your child has exercise
• whether your child has good or bad playmates

Some things are good and necessary for development, and some aren't. If you give your child no particular diet and no exercise as he is growing up and tell him that when he is grown he can decide on his own diet and decide whether or not to be an athlete, you have stacked the deck and actually made it difficult or impossible for your child to choose good food or be an athlete. That is the perspective your mom is coming from.

The question for her, and for you, is not whether Baptism has meaning for you or for her but what is the meaning of Baptism in itself. I would like to suggest that you get a book called, Handbook of Christian Apologetics, of whom Peter Kreeft is a co-author, to investigate these very important matters (arguments for and against God, morality, Christianity, and Catholicism).

It presents the arguments against belief even better than most non-believers could do. It is good to be very well-informed on these matters before making such a serious decision because of the serious consequences of being wrong.

As to your question:

Your child may not be baptized without your consent and without the Church having a reasonable expectation that you would raise the child Catholic. In order for her to have that expectation, you would have to be on your way into Catholicism, at least, and also take some preparation classes about Baptism.

Catholics know that Christ said that Baptism is necessary for salvation. He also said faith is necessary for salvation. He also said that the nations — the pagans, the uncircumcised of the time, the unbaptized — would be judged, with us, on the charity of their lives. (feeding the hungry, etc.) The Church has taught since the beginning, even in the New Testament, that people of good conscience can be saved without Baptism, as they follow the light God gives them and live according to the natural moral law (which is enshrined in nearly every law code from the dawn of law codes: no murder, lying, stealing, adultery, etc.). The problem is that it is difficult to see this light and to follow it without God's help. Baptism gives the help.

As for babies, they are baptized because of the faith of their parents and the supernatural powers they receive enable them to have faith and live the faith as they grow — and living the faith is really living out the relationship of an adopted child of God, who truly shares God's divine nature because of the effects of the indwelling of the Trinity in the person. The shorthand for this sharing is sanctifying grace.

If children are unbaptized, they lack these gifts, and the protection from the Evil One that they bring. They also lack the belonging to the Communion of Saints, and all the help and assistance they give us. However, the Spirit blows where He wills, Christ said, and God loves and wants to save all people.  Your mother's prayers will follow your son to the end of his life.

I trust that God will grant His grace to your son some day and I hope that your son will accept it at that time so that he can know the fullness of joy and life that comes from God in Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Mary Ann

Hi Rebecca,

In line with what my colleague Mary Ann has said, I'd refer you to a similar posting I answered along with my colleague Eric:

• Would the Church mind if, in raising my children, I let them to decide which faith to believe?

Hope this helps,

Mike

Rebecca,

I think Mary Ann assumed that you were a relativist, not because you were not a Catholic but, because you are dead set against acknowledging any one religion as true.

You said:
I intend to educate my child about different belief systems, which is something most organized religions don't usually encourage.

While it is good to educate your child about many belief systems (in the sense that one might educate one's child about wrong ideas as well as right ones), you then compared different belief systems to different sports, in which there is no one right sport except the one that is right for you.

Relativism is defined as:

A view that theories where what is right and good are relative in that ethical truths depend upon the individuals and groups holding them so that what is considered right and good by one person or group may be considered wrong and bad by another.

You seem to hold that no one religion is fundamentally and universally more right than every other, which corresponds to this definition of relativism. So the conclusion is not, I assure you, based on the fact that you are non-Catholic.

Eric

Rebecca,

You are so right that God has a plan for us, and that many people follow a belief system solely out of programming and of course there are many foods and many forms of exercise . . .

But are there many truths?

• Is it true that you can eat a good balanced diet and be healthy, and also true that you can eat an unbalanced diet and be healthy?
• Is it true that you can have balanced exercise and be strong, and also true that you can do no exercise and be strong?

I wasn't referring to this or that true thing. All religions have some truth in them but they all contradict each other about many things, or there would be no choosing between them. I didn't conclude you were a relativist because you were not Catholic, not at all. Most people nowadays are relativists.

Relativism is the belief that there is only subjective truth, i.e. there is truth which is true for me and something else which can be true for you. This sort of truth doesn't work in science or math, and it doesn't work with reality. With religion, either God spoke or He didn't. So the question is:

• What are your beliefs?

I gather that there is no one true path; that all religions are equally valid. That is moral relativism and ultimately it is a position that is only possible because deep down, one really does hold to a belief system, thanks to the fact that God implanted one in us, which men have always called the law of nature.

Without a God, there is no good reason to follow any belief system. Without God's Word, there is no reason to choose one over another. So the task becomes finding out if and when God spoke, and what He said. It becomes a search for Truth, not a search for what I like best.

The only reason I am being so forthright about this is that it may help you understand and appreciate where your mom is coming from. For her (and in reality), life has a goal, and you reach it or you don't. If you are on the right path you can reach it, and if you aren't on the right path you can get seriously hurt and maybe not reach it. You can reach the goal from almost anywhere, if your inner GPS is oriented to the goal and you follow it, but one has to:

• believe in a goal and the GPS system to do even that
• have the juice to turn it on, and
• have the juice to follow it.

It is safer, more fulfilling, and easier, to follow God's Plan (as you said) than it is to make up our own.

I know you are a good mom and I wish you the best.

Mary Ann

Amy,

I appreciate your zeal but your friends have misled you about what Scripture teaches. You need to read it more deeply and not just believe whatever they tell you it says. Read the whole thing for yourself.

First of all, Scripture calls Baptism the circumcision of Christ (Colossians 2:11). Since circumcision was the rite performed on Jewish male infants to admit them into the covenant, likewise Baptism should be performed on infants.

Second of all, all people are sentenced to eternal death owing to Adam's sin, adult or child (Romans 5:12-19). The way out of this is Baptism (Romans 6:4-11). It is by participating, through Baptism, in Christ's Death and Resurrection that we are saved. Now let me ask you a question. You believe that children under the age of reason are automatically saved.

Where is this proven in Scripture?

I don't mean the vague and wishful let the little children come to me (which equally could be used to prove that children can be baptized) but something solid.

You can't find it, because it isn't there.

Third of all, you'll note the pattern in Acts is for whole households to be baptized when the head of the household believed:

• without regard for whether the rest of the members of the family believed, or
• whether they were adults or not (Acts 16:33, Acts 1:16).

Part of the difference in what you believe from us on this topic is that you see Baptism merely as a public declaration of faith, whereas Scripture sees it as a life-giving participation in the Passion, Death, and Resurrection of Christ (Romans 6), a regeneration of the inner man (Titus 3:5).

For us, it's being reborn into the faith (John 3:5) — being born of water and spirit and the Father declaring us his sons and daughters, just as Christ was when he was baptized.

You are hung up on infant baptism because you mistakenly think Baptism is just a profession of faith but that's not what Scripture teaches.

• By the way, if Baptism is a profession of faith, why does it not say so in Scripture? and
• Why did Philip baptize the Ethiopian eunuch in private, apart from a believing community (Acts 8:34-36)?
• How do you explain that, since he wasn't professing it to anyone?

We see evidence in the very Early Church that they baptized infants, even in the second and third centuries:

• Early Teachings on Infant Baptism
• The Early Church Fathers on the Sacrament of Baptism and Infant Baptism.

I urge you to have an open mind on this and see what Scripture really teaches. Search our Knowledge base under Infant Baptism (or just baptism) for more information, or see

Infant Baptism

Hope this helps,

Eric